For more than a decade, Venezuela has had the world’s worst-performing economy. Misguided policies pursued by the country’s strongman, Nicolás Maduro, and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, stifled growth and productivity, while punitive U.S. sanctions severely damaged the economy by severing its links to global trade and financial markets. As a result, the country’s GDP shrank by over 70 percent between 2012 and 2020—the largest economic contraction ever documented in a country not at war. But now